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Live, From Anna Maria

By Alison Davis October 22, 2007 3:14 pmOctober 22, 2007 3:14 pm

The great room looking toward the back of the house, left, and the front, right. (Photos: Alison Davis)

When my mother and I landed in Sarasota yesterday morning, it took every ounce of willpower not to drive directly to 92 North Shore Drive to see the house. Since my mother has never been to the area, I felt obliged to take the scenic route. In fact, apart from a trip to Miami 40 years ago, she has never spent time in Florida. So I wanted to let her look around a bit.

We drove south from the Sarasota/Bradenton Airport through the city of Sarasota, over the swooping causeway to St. Armand’s Circle, then north on St. Armand’s Island and over the bridge to Longboat Key.

It was scenic, all right — gulf beaches and boats on the bay, tropical foliage and golf courses — but it was also slow. It was only October and already the senior-citizen snowbirds were out in full force, driving their full-size sedans with exquisite care. By the time we got to the bridge to Anna Maria Island, I had exhausted my tour-guide abilities. I stopped talking and made a beeline for the house.

The garage, left, and the lanai, right.

The front yard was a mess of signs, trucks, construction materials and debris. But the house — in person — looked better than the photos, even in its unfinished state. My heart beat faster. I was happy, but would I love the inside as much as I did the outside?

We picked our way around the junk and went in. First, we looked at the ground floor. The garages were nothing special — but the lanai was perfect.

The second foor.

Then we were walking up the stairs to the main level. “Wow!” I said, as I entered the dining/kitchen/great room space, and I kept saying it over and over. Even though there is still the issue of how to configure the kitchen, the potential was enormous. The space was open with high ceilings and lots of windows; it was going to be wonderful.

I was now officially euphoric. Not every room was as flat-out fabulous as the great room (the master bath, for example, needs a different configuration to accommodate a walk-in shower), but over all, the space was great.

“Wow” is definitely the word. You are in what I have come to call the “Wow stage” of house construction. So much is happening, so much is changing, and everything is so large that almost everyday, you can see huge results of lots of work, and all you can say each visit is “Wow.”

Enjoy this stage. It’s a great one. And use all the energy you get from the wonder to tackle the decisions on the kitchen et al. It’s easier once you actually see the space.

I’m excited for you!

(And I like the lanai, too. What a nice surprise for you that is turning out to be.)

One question – maybe formed by my living in California a long time. Out there usually houses often have monster windows, almost walls of glass, in the main living area, so the outside is a continuation of the inside. I was thinking (I forget how the house plans look) unconsciously that you would be doing this at least in the great room. It doesn’t look like that’s happening, so you may be missing a bet there.

It looks like John’s team does some quality work. Like The Cardinal said, this is the exciting part. Just wait until you get drywall.

Any word on the “green” stuff? What type of insulation are you using? Are you considering a greywater system (a REALLY good idea given the recent water concerns)? Dual-flush toilets? Eschewing the wasteful, body-sprayer shower?

Yikes on the kitchen and bathroom thing. It’s really a shame you are having to reconfigure rooms on the fly — especially after hiring an architect…

If you haven’t already, have John tack up a couple of tarps to show you how spacious your dining/kitchen/living space will look should you wall off your dining room from your kitchen.

Are you simulating that and other options during these sessions with John?

It appears from one the photos that John found a way to span the area separating dining and living spaces as shown on your July 30 plans without the two columns/posts depicted in those plans. If that is the case, more options are available to you.

From the appearance in one of the photos of 2-bys on the floor describing the location of pantry cabinets as shown on your July 30 first floor drawings, it would appear Plan A is not entirely removed from consideration.

Vaulted ceiling framed up for the second floor hall. That should be a nice touch.

Folks,
Please notice the cleanliness of the job site. Kudos to John and his team. This is how a job site should look at the end of each work day. It makes for a more pleasant and most importantly, a safer work environment.
Ken G.

You may wish to think about the term hurricane. California doesn’t get them; Florida does. You can’t build “…monster windows, almost walls of glass, in the main living area, so the outside is a continuation of the inside” in Florida, due to the desire for the house not to wash away in a storm.

As several posters have said, the inside of the house looks very orderly, but Alison said “The front yard was a mess of signs, trucks, construction materials and debris.” This is not at all neighborly, and is VERY dangerous.

Yes, great job, John in terms of neatness. I wish more construction/house repair types paid attention to this. If they only knew what a difference this makes to the homeowner when stuff is being repaired. No one wants to wash down the entire bathroom from the ceiling when a spectacularly messy plumber has been in there. Those folks get no repeat business.

Thanks to the guys who work in the dirt crawl space, accesssable thru the house, who take the time to spread a canvas tarp on the rug so that I don’t have to have the carpet cleaned afterwards. Two minutes this takes, what were the other guys thinking.

This looks incredible. I have been following this site for a long time, so it’s great to see your house coming together. I have some land in the Gulf Coast so I have been enthusiastically following along. It used to be a mild obsession to check on updates, and now you’re providing me with breaks from MCAT preparation. At one point I had the urge to fly from Texas to see Anna Maria and what was then your empty lot. Thank you and once again it looks great.

These pictures of the house are great, but Alison took them sometime between when she and her mom got there in the morning, and 3:14PM when she posted her blog. Shouldn’t there be some construction workers and construction debris in pictures taken during the work day? We thought our builders were good about keeping the job site clean when they left, but when they were working it was definitely a work site. Is there another delay we have yet to hear about? It’s not looking like rain in the pictures.

There are usually signs around a construction site; all the different crews want to advertise their work. At our site there are two signs for the builders, (one at the foot of the driveway showing from the private road, and one further in) one sign for the company that put in the geothermal, one for the excavation crew and one for the folks who drilled the well. It’s not really a mess — they are tasteful signs with nothing more than the corporate name. Then there is a sign with the address showing, so crews can find us. Last, there is a board at the foot of the driveway, where Erik has posted the permits, a no-smoking sign, a capsule containing one copy of the building plans, and other such postings as are required by law.

Sounds like a lot, but actually it’s not bad. And I don’t begrudge them their chance to advertise based on the *great* job they’re doing for me.

There is a large dumpster in front of the house; this is where all that junk and mess that you don’t see on the floor goes. The dumpster company comes and collects the dumpster when it’s full, sorts through and recycles as appropriate. Other than the fact that it takes up so much parking room, it’s no big deal. Not something I’d want to have every day, but perfectly understandable during construction.

“Debris” may be in the eye of the beholder. Erik’s crews pile usable lumber and materials on a canvas next to the dumpster, and that’s where they go when they need a piece of wood of a given size, rather than cutting an otherwise perfectly fine board. It’s a pile, but it’s a neat pile, and their care in using/reusing material is appreciated, both for the savings in costs and the savings to waste and landfills.

While the crews are there working, of course their trucks are in the area — that’s how they get themselves and their equipment up the hill to the site.

But they clean up each day before they leave. More for a safety reason than to keep me happy, but it does make me happy. As soon as my shoulder is stronger, I’ll be helping with the cleanup. Erik doesn’t charge me mark-up for what I do, and it’s nice to get a bit of sweat equity in my house.

It may be that I see things a bit differently because I visit my site almost every day. Alison doesn’t have that luxury, so she’s getting a lot of images in a small amount of time.

About the house pictures and a possible delay: Consider what the next few things in the process are. Install windows– but they haven’t been ordered because A&P haven’t chosen them yet; that’s being done now. Do plumbing and electrical– but with the great room yet undesigned, and the possible redesign of the bathrooms, that can’t be done yet either.

So maybe the workers are doing the roof right now, and waiting for the design to be finished before they do any more interior work.

In reply to all commenters about the neatness of the job site: yes, kudos to Johhny for cleaning up his job site before being photographed for a major international newspaper, and hopefully, after each day’s construction work.

About the house pictures and lack of construction workers in them, I think Alison took these pix on Sunday, the day she and her mom arrived. About the outdoor *mess* Alison described seeing on arrival, I suspect Alison may be using a southerner’s word meaning *a lot of*… The photo for Week 11 in /Construction Progress and Alison’s pix that show exteriors: all looks pretty orderly although there’s definitely a lot of stuff in the front area.

It looks as if John runs a tight ship…a sign of a good and safety conscious builder. I hope that you seriously consider where your plumbing fixtures are made when you begin to purchase. I’ve learned the hard way to only buy European and American made fixtures…regardless of the manufacturer.
Have fun…your house will be wonderful.

Liz

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They've found an idyllic tiny town in Florida, they've bought a piece of land and now Paul B. Brown and Alison Davis are setting out to build their dream house. How hard can it be, they wonder, even though they live 1,500 miles away, they've never built a home before and they don't know anything about architects, builders, local zoning laws or financing? On this blog for Great Homes, they recount their successes and failures and will chronicle their adventures to come.